Made much the same comment myself, Nick, but the site went ti ts up, temporarily, as I pressed "submit".

It was certainly a pretty heavy week, last week, but I wouldn't sell on AZN and BP. Baccy is a different proposition: well they might continue puffing away in the Far East and places, but if the trend is to enforce reducing the nicotine, and therefore the addictive aspect of baccy, it might catch on world-wide. Thing is, as you mention, PLI is very heavily into baccy and that's a concern. Does one wait for developments, or sell/lighten? Personally, I sold half mine Friday PM.

Sold out completely today. Made modest gains over last year or so.
Tobacco under attack quite rightly. BP oil price concerns. AZN diving. Provident in trouble. BT Italy problems. Not a portfolio I would select myself.

As a guide to the influence of the biotech style new holdings, BIOG and WWH have both suffered this year but are now picking up, partly due to currency movements - perhaps providing a (vain) hope that PLI will recoup its losses too? I have already halved the cash allocated to PLI and moved it to FGT and EDIN as despite their lower dividends, their SP growth performance is certainly better.
As I also own EDIN shares let's hope Mark Barnett keeps his experimentation to PLI!

I have noticed this too, probably happened when Woodford left and Mark Barnett eventually had a reshuffle of the shares, he left Edinburgh unshuffled and they have performed a lot better, only down a couple of percent as against over 8 percent down over the past 12 months for Perpetual I & G. He has gone for a lot of the biotech type aim shares which probably have not performed so well. City of London have performed better too. Do not think there is an easy answer. I shall move some out myself. Hopefully they will even out over the long term, shame though as they were so consistently good in the past. Will check the Annual reports for any clues.
Good Luck

I've invested in PLI for 7 years and seen it beat the FTSE 100 and 250 regularly. Add in its good and rising dividends, this has been a core holding.
This year it has lost ground and continues to do so. Looking at the underlying holdings I can't see a strong reason for underperformance and will hold until the year end expecting 'normal service' to be resumed.
Can anyone throw light (and hope) on the recent performance?

"With interest rates likely to start rising both here and in the US within the next year, and Nick Louth deciding to stand down from the active income portfolio to pursue a career as a novelist, this is an opportune time for a general review of ..."

"On 15 October, Invesco Perpetual announced that Neil Woodford will leave the company on 29 April 2014 with fund responsibilities transitioning to Mark Barnett and the Invesco Perpetual UK Equity team.Barnett will become lead manager for the ..."

"Almost all Money Observer's aggressive investment trust tips from 2012 have had a great run this year but our defensive tips have generally fared less well.One of the UK mainstream choices will be familiar with investors, having been a favoured ..."

That is the question.
I bought these for the long term, but can only see a downward trend short term at the moment, so tempted to bail out then buy back in.
Anybody with perhaps a greater knowledge wish to comment ?

I hold 19,000 subs,( avergae price paid 42p) and considered selling them y'day but there was a huge spready 65-70p for large amounts. The ordinary share (246p) needs to rise by only 3.2% a year between now and 31/8/2013 yrs to make holding the subs (at 66p) worthwhile, as the subs are geared 3.6 times. If you add in the lost dividend each year by holding the subs rather than the ordinary shares, then the ordinary share needs to rise by about 4.2% a year ( after the dividend is paid) to make holding the subs no better/worse than the ordinary shares. Above 4.2% then the subs are a better bet. Is that excessive? Probably not ( though not by any means certain as thats 4.2+say 3% divi=7.2% annual return), but with a good manager we might exceed that as an average in the next 6 years but may well be a bumpy ride and I'd expect to see the sub at 50p if the FTSE falls substantially below 6000, but longer term, I am at present prepared to hold. If the FTSE crashes then like all crashes the reason to buy more becomes ever more compelling considering crashes always come to an end and prices will rise again and we still have 6.3 years to 31/8/2013.

the sub rights take up means you have to pay an extra 218p to convert every 1 subscription share you hold ( worth 66p), total 218+66=284p , to to an ordinary share that is worth about 250p. So its not worth it at present.It is better to sell the sub shares than exercise them at present
. Ideally wait until the ordinary share less 218p is close to the value of the subscription share. Of course the ordinary share attracts a dividend of probably near 3%. At present the sub share is worth only 250-218.9= 31.1p, yet trades at 67p. Is the sub over valued or does the market expect in the next 6 uyrs that the ordianry share will rise a lot further, maybe to 350-400p, which would make the sub worth 131-181p, a 200-300% rise versus a 40-60% rise in the ordinary share, plus 6 yrs div's worth another maybe 20%. IF the ordinary share falls to say 219p or less in the next 6 yrs ( what a dreadful scenario) then your current sub share will probably expire worthless!

I am toying with either buying some more in this share, or adding to my Foreign & Colonial IT shares, which seemed to have improved lately.
Also a bit wary if the market is due a bit of a correction haven been on a 3 year upwards curve.
Any other thoughts welcome on this share.

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